A crowd of people came out in Bedford-Stuyvesant Monday to talk about a pernicious issue in the neighborhood: property fraud, deed theft and predatory real estate speculation.
THE CITY newsroom, which has completed on the topic, led a community conversation, hosted by JPMorgan Chase at their Brooklyn Community Banking Branch in Bed-Stuy, with experts who help New Yorkers grapple with the problem every day.
Marco Villegas, program officer for global philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase, said Bed-Stuy may be the epicenter of speculators trying to wrongfully get their hands on property in New York City — if not the entire United States.
The red flags for New Yorkers to watch for are numerous. Scott Kohanowski, general counsel for the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, said he’s worked with clients who have been approached by scammers through social media, family and even their church communities.
Kim Allman, interim executive director of Abode Alliance, told attendees unequivocally: find trusted legal help, and keep in mind that not all attorneys are created equal. Your uncle with a law degree doesn’t necessarily know about the complexities of estate or property law.
Attendees were invited to ask questions and share their stories in an off-the-record conversation with the ists.
The conversation was moderated by Rachel Holliday Smith, managing editor at THE CITY, which has published numerous stories about property-related fraud and patterns of real estate speculation. Those include our award-winning Deed Finders series, which documents how speculators scoop up shares from unsuspecting heirs in a scheme that’s destroying generational wealth in the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods.
More recently, THE CITY published an investigation of the secretive family who grabbed buildings from immigrant owners across Brooklyn, including the site of the beloved Sherita billboard on Atlantic Avenue.
JPMorgan Chase is a sponsor of THE CITY’s independent journalism, including this series of community conversations hosted at Chase’s community bank branches throughout New York City.
